905 = Amazing, but a few niggles!

[Sliced Bread]

Hi,

I would just like to say thank you to those of you who suggested buying an Onkyo 905. This thing is amazing! Films are so much more enjoyable than they were with my Denon 3802. Bass, vocals & surround steering have all been improved by quite a margin. Orchestral sound tracks in particular sound fantastic. I'm so impressed that I even don't mind the looks any more. Even my wife loves it :O)

I have however had a couple of niggles and I would like to see if it is normal or potentially faulty:

1) The picture when fed through the amp from my sky box (standard not plus or HD) via a scart to three phono's (yellow/red/white) is very shaky. I have tried selecting "720P" and "through" on the 905's monitor and it looks like a very poor interlaced picture. It is very apparent on the sky menu where the edges of the words flicker. There is no noise reductions etc enabled. The picture from my DVD player which is up scaled to 720P in the player and passed 'through' on the 905 looks fine.

2) The audyssey setup seems to think that all 5 of my speakers are full range despite my rear & centre speakers (mission 780 and 78C) being fairly small designs and are certainly not capable of being full range speakers. Should I leave them as they are as this is what audyssey believes to be best or will this put too much demand on the speakers?

Out of curiosity, I have read else where that there is a 'bed in period' with amps in the same way as there is with speakers and so the amp should sound even better over time. Is this true?

Any help is appreciated. A hug goes out to the first responder :O)

 

[Anonymous]

Collecting a 1/2 hug, as I can only respond to item 2 really:

I would change the speakers to small if they are in fact, er, 'small', and set a crossover based on experimenting and listening, starting with 80Hz and work upwards. My Marantz AVR did the same through Audyssey, set my tiny M1 speakers to large and crossover to 60Hz, which is complete rubbish, so I went back in changed it all, and turned off Audyssey....

SC

 

[professorhat]

I'll collect the other half then - in my experiments (though admittedly not with Sky but standard Freeview) and a few others I've seen posted on the forums, you're better off hooking the Sky box straight to the TV via standard RGB Scart lead. Although the signal isn't being upscaled by the 905, the quality of the signal provided by the RGB Scart connection (as opposed to a composite which is what you're now getting) means that you actually get a better picture this way.
I'm glad you're enjoying it - I also had a similar "Wow" experience when I watched my first film compared to my old Denon amp!

 

[Sliced Bread]

Thanks for your help...Half hugs are in the post to you two :O)

professorhat:I also had a similar "Wow" experience when I watched my first film compared to my old Denon amp!

I was quite surprised to hear just how much better it sounds. Effects seem to feel like they are actually in the room (something I never truly got from my 3802) and had so much more presence. I think I would go so far as to say that this is the first time I've been 100% satisfied with the sound of my movies and it's supposed to get better with blue ray!!